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Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo: A Reality Review

Why is this show on television?

I like to think that my wife and I are easy going, tolerant
people. We respect our fellow human
beings, simply because they're human.
BEING human is hard. We're not
going to snob out on the Thompson family, we're not going to condemn them as
tasteless rednecks.

The point of televising the lives of the Thomson family is
that they ARE tasteless rednecks. Many recent reality shows are predicated on
the idea that an audience will enjoy watching people who are more stupid and
fucked up than themselves. "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" is one of those
series built around pathetic dysfunction.

For fifteen minutes we found the show to be unintentionally
funny. Who cares whether we're laughing
at or with the characters? It's still
funny. Mother's cross-eyed empty gaze
is excruciating. She looks as though
she's trying to monitor the growth of the huge zit that's erupting at the
corner of her eye. Alana "Honey
Boo Boo"Thomson is the designated driver of the family. She has the most energy, the most
confidence. She's a "Beauty Queen". No matter that she's an untalented and unattractive little
brat. She is now a star on a Reality
Television show.

I could feel my wife's jaw drop when Alana (Honey) spoke
shamelessly about her "vigajig".
We understood that this is the Thompson family's peculiar vernacular,
that Mom and the three sisters refer to their Vigajigs. There's only one male in the house, Dad, and
he's so wasted that he may as well not exist.
The girls have a veritable dictionary of slang terms for their
genitalia. The term sounded so surreal coming from the mouth of
a six year old, who was speaking in front of a camera crew and ultimately before
a viewing public. It wasn't so much
inappropriate as it was alarming.

Reality TV series are cheap to produce. Some of them are compelling but they are
also frustrating because they are so loaded with Filler. Every episode begins with a recapitulation
of the entire season. Then the story
slips into gear. Then there's a
commercial and the week's episode is recapitulated for three or four minutes
before a bit of fresh footage is leaked into the story. This way a forty two minute television show
is whittled down to about twenty minutes of written and filmed content. The "stars" don't make much money
unless the show sustains itself as a multi-season hit.

We watched "Deadliest Catch" for several seasons
and enjoyed it. Still, there was the
filler and the commercials and the recaps and the same footage shown again and
again while the stories edged forward, oh so slowly. A Reality Show has to operate on a strict
budget. Not much of that budget is going into the writers' pockets.

In the last couple of years the trend has been towards
sleaze shows with the state of New Jersey featured heavily in a selection of
series in which the characters vary from laughable to reprehensible.

"Honey Boo Boo" is an offshoot of "Toddlers
And Tiaras".

We missed that
one. The whole pedophilic beauty
pageant phenomenon has been examined by our culture since the murder of
JonBenet Ramsey in 1996. Nothing has changed. The unsolved mystery is
an unresolved issue. Toddlers are still togged up in
provocative makeup and hosiery and encouraged to wiggle and dance on stage in a
way that would have shocked the shoes off my parents and grandparents.

In any case, Honey Boo Boo is not a contender for any major
prizes in the pageant world. She
attends tawdry little events where fifteen or twenty mothers stuff their little
girls with fantasies. Everything's been
said and written about sexualizing little girls too early. I don't need to add anything to this body of
opinion. I can only say that I have no
plans to tune into any more episodes of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo".

I'm thrilled for the Thomson
family's success. I'm ecstatic for
Alana's sudden stardom. I know
that her family has given her solid emotional grounding and psychological balance. Fame won't damage Alana. No sir, not Honey Boo Boo, with her baby fat love handles popping out the sides of her two piece leotard. She'll be just fine.

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